


Stepp'd In So Far

by QueenofLit



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Cannon-Typical Violence, M/M, Macbeth - Freeform, Mentions of Blood, idk - Freeform, it's not my usual writing style, lots of blood, maybe God!Will?, no it's not clear to me either, pretentious wording?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-30
Updated: 2017-01-30
Packaged: 2018-09-20 21:02:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9516029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenofLit/pseuds/QueenofLit
Summary: “When shall you hold no further use of me?” Will questioned quietly. King Crawford stood by, ready with collar and chain. “When all the world is but blood - carpet to roll out in announcement of your majesty’s coming?”“Speech becomes you not,” was the King’s harsh reply. He stepped onto the field, ready with yoke to bind his beast to burden.“No,” Will agreed with an ease the summer’s wind would envy. “Only death becomes me.” He raised crimson hands in supplication of the dark moon. “I am in blood.” A cock of the head. A scenting of death. “So are you.”





	

**Author's Note:**

> I... have no idea what this is. I just grabbed a piece of paper at work while very tired and listening to Radiohead and, this happened? I have no clue what the setting is besides vaguely medieval, maybe Roman? I don't know, it exists, and it fit the criteria. Hope you enjoy???

_I am in blood,_  
_stepp'd in so far, that, should I wade no more,_  
_returning were as tedious as go o'er._  
_~Macbeth III.iv._

Will held close to the silence. It was heavy, for some. Nigh unbearable. To him, it was a comfort. The silence of a field where none but corpses spoke. It was peaceful like this, naught but the dead, only blood left to call to him. 

The others stayed back as death settled round his shoulders, a comforting shroud. No one had feared him before, he giving none cause, but they’d learned the prudence of trembling when near. He, King Crawford’s shackled beast. He, the bloody tyrant chained to bended knee. He was a wild thing of crimson shadows, unaccustomed to rule, yet the chafe of his chains had long ebbed. 

“When shall you hold no further use of me?” Will questioned quietly. King Crawford stood by, ready with collar and chain. “When all the world is but blood - carpet to roll out in announcement of your majesty’s coming?” 

“Speech becomes you not,” was the King’s harsh reply. He stepped onto the field, ready with yoke to bind his beast to burden. 

“No,” Will agreed with an ease the summer’s wind would envy. “Only death becomes me.” He raised crimson hands in supplication of the dark moon. “I am in blood.” A cock of the head. A scenting of death. “So are you.” 

There was no time for mistakes to be weighed. There’d barely been time of realization ‘fore Will was upon the master who’d foolishly broken the laws of his binding with a single touch of the blood Will resided in. His flesh tasted not of sweet, nor of sour fear. Simply death. And with that death, Will regained his freedom. 

Come the dawn, Will stood before the enemy of his fallen master, still bathed in the blood some bragged to be colored of the sky. Hannibal stood weary, ready for battle as he should be. Will had been his foe err the moon’s rise - the general had no reason to know he’d been foe no longer at it’s setting. 

“Why come you now?” Hannibal asked, voice as deep as the mountains of the lands which had lain claim to him in his youth. “Does this King of the Western Sea grow weary of these games, playing with fear and not men?”

“King Crawford did beset himself to my mercy,” Will replied, face serene. “The blood of my kill stained the lace of his shoe, the impenetrable garment bleeding through, and as his skin did sully itself with the blood I shed in his stead, so too did I take the ransom of my wounds out from his flesh.” 

Hannibal’s eyes widened the smallest of increments, yet it was harold of a thousand dawning suns. “Have you come to return to me, my beautiful god?”

“Can I truly be a worthy god? I was bound to yoke and plow. The earth was turned beneath my palms, easy as the flesh he bid me rend.” Will stared at his hands - pale apparitions that had never before been stained with the brown blood of field’s grain. 

Hands stained with the earth they knew covered his own, gentle and kind - more so than any creature under the heavens could deserve. “Men to the East tell tale of two gods made bid to build a wall. Great and mighty they built it, strong and vast, yet it did crumble beneath their feet before the dawning of a new age.” Will looked up to Hannibal then, whose eyes were soft and smile discreet. “You hold more majesty in your bearing than all the heaven’s becoming - my Will, it is an honor to worship at your feet.” 

Will felt his chest swell with liquid warmth, his heart (if indeed a creature such as he could bear that gentle beating organ without it coming to harm) overflowing with the thing all else called love. “I am in blood,” Will told the object of his devotion gently, clasping those hands between his own as a supplicant to a knight, “I am stepp’d in too far for godhood to ever rest upon my brow. But I would serve you till my days end, Hannibal. I am your sword.” Will took those hands to cup against his face, burrowing into the warmth of that grip as if he were a child returning home. “Use me.” 

“My Will,” Hannibal did breath in repose, and the man drew him in close to the shelter of his breast. Will rumbled as the thunder, peaceful at last. 

Tomorrow, they would ride for shore. Tomorrow, Hannibal would unsheath Will to beat the invaders back to the sea which spat them forth. Tomorrow, the earth would drown in a crimson flood. Tomorrow, there would be time for such a word as war.

**Author's Note:**

> Well they're not in Italy, because the 'people to the east' talk of the walls of Troy, which Poseidon and Apollo were tasked to build during an odd period of time when they were basically enslaved to the King of Troy. The Aeneid talks of the great relish with which the two gods destroyed said wall when Troy fell at the end of the Trojan War. Also, fun fact: Poseidon is not only god of the sea, but also of walls. Weird, right?


End file.
